


Do You Remember How to Play?

by jaythewriter



Series: Misplaced Attachments [3]
Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: M/M, another sidefic everyone just for you, jay is cute and time is grumpy, ukelele with tim attachment - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-07
Updated: 2014-02-07
Packaged: 2018-01-11 12:34:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1173132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaythewriter/pseuds/jaythewriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex has Jay and Tim clean out his attic, hoping their efforts will produce a few valuables that could take care of the rent Mr. Kralie is asking for. They end up finding something unexpected in the process.</p><p>(Takes place a bit after Chapter 14.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do You Remember How to Play?

You can’t remember the last time you were this annoyed. 

A couple days ago, actually, when you couldn’t figure out the route to Alex’s parents’ home. Okay, maybe you can remember. Whatever; you’re covered in dust, sweating, and sleepy. 

It ought to be worth it, knowing that you’ll make money off of any valuables you find, but it’s not /your/ attic you’re working in. If it were, it’d be a different story entirely. But it’s Alex’s attic, he /told/ you and Jay to go up here and get to work. He should be the one looking through these crates and risking being crushed by falling boxes. No, though, instead he’s off probably drinking away any money he earned selling /Jay’s/ fucking camera, that drunken asshole--

“Tim, you’re muttering to yourself.”

You look up.

Jay stands across from you, holding several porcelain Russian dolls to his chest. His eyebrows are knit together, worry pinching his face. Seeing his anxiety shakes you into sitting upright over the cardboard box. 

“Sorry, didn’t even realize it,” you say, shrugging sheepishly. You push away the box, deciding that there isn’t anything worthwhile inside of it. It’s doubtful that there’s a market for diplomas and graduation gowns, anyway. “Listen, do you mind if I head downstairs? I don’t think we’re going to find anything else here.”

“I don’t mind,” Jay assures you, adjusting his arms to carry the dolls more easily. He stares down at them, frowning. “Do you think these could get us a couple dollars down at the antique shop in town, though?”

You can’t help snorting. Climbing to your feet, you reach out and take the tiniest doll, carefully turning it over in your hands.

“No, Jay, look,” you say, holding the doll out to him. “It’s cracked, and the others are all missing chunks of their faces. Nobody in their right mind will buy them.”

“Oh,” the man sighs. His disappointment is so heavy that his entire body sags with it. It’s pathetic enough that you consider changing your answer to a ‘okay, maybe someone who is really desperate on eBay will’, but it wouldn’t feel right to set him up for further frustration. 

Instead, you clap him on his shoulder, hoping the gesture will come across as encouraging. Leaving his side, you head towards the ladder and let it back down into the second floor hallway. 

You’re sticking your foot through the first rung when you hear it: a crash that could probably break the sound barrier, with glass shattering and a body thudding to the floor.

“Fuck.”

Of course Jay would fall and break those dolls. 

"You alright?" you ask, a useless kneejerk question. Jay lets out something that sounds like a confirmation, though it could also pass for a very irritated groan. 

When you make your way back to him, he's struggling to climb to his feet, supporting his weight against a shifting box. It topples over, and you catch him before he hits the floor and pierces his chest with the broken bits of porcelain.

"Tripped on somethin'," Jay grumbles, clinging tight to your arm. 

"Something being what?" 

He lets go of you and walks carefully (in sock feet, of fucking course), finding the offending object with his foot. It slid underneath a rickety table missing a leg when Jay tripped over it, and when it comes back out--

Well, you just don't know what to say.

He recognizes it quickly, quicker than you'd expect him to.

"Is that your ukelele?"

You don't remember how it ended up here. Maybe Brian took it here, perhaps Alex called for another jam session and you forgot all about it.

But it's the most peculiar thing, seeing it here, seeing it in Jay's hands as he picks it up and gently, almost lovingly runs his fingers over the strings. 

"It's in really good shape compared to everything else here," Jay observes with a smile. You continue to stare, reaching out to take it from him. He gives it to you, letting you run your fingers up and down the strings. Jay's right; it's covered in dust, as is everything else in here, but it's as though you never abandoned it for these past years.

"Can you remember how to play?"

Jay's voice tears you from your trance. You look up at him, taking a minute to process his question. Can you? The chords are there in your head, but your fingers are having trouble figuring out where to lay.

You twitch out a few ugly twangs, then, something sweet comes together when you strum it just right. Jay tilts his head at the sound, like a puppy.

"...Is it okay if you, uh, don't stare?" you ask, plucking a string and watching the dust motes flutter off. "Like, clean up or go work or something, just don't look at me. It's harder remembering when you’re watching.”

You feel bad for telling him not to stare, but you can't work with an audience. Funny, you used to be an actor.

He takes heed anyway, pulling a shy smile and going to the shattered dolls. Once you've shaken the feeling of his eyes on you, you let yourself sit on the floor again, and you adjust to the feeling of the ukelele against you, the weight of it and its shape.

Yes, it's definitely easier this way, easier to strum and pour the thought of a song into the instrument. You recognize the song but you don't quite place it til you hear Jay laugh softly to himself.

It's the song you helped put together for that stupid trailer.

You can't help smiling yourself. You'd expect to be annoyed, but-- you /aren't/, you can see Brian's smile and Alex's hands dancing across that battery powered keyboard.

It's the only song you can remember how to play, so you keep playing it, over and over while Jay works around you, his walk considerably loose and relaxed.

Relaxed, what an alien feeling, especially to you.

But it's what you are right now, and you cling to it, hoping that it'll last a little longer, maybe even the rest of the evening.


End file.
